Binding Wounds And Bringing Joy

by cobaltandrising

“Why do I need your story and why do you need your story? Because story is a way that the Spirit of God can bind our wounds.” ~Ann Voskamp

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been taking in stories. The one of a widow who confessed many dreams had died, but called herself “blessed” because of the one dream God raised up out of the dying. The one of a woman who is still standing after a hard move to a new city, in boldness choosing joy instead of fear. The one of a couple who sat in a doctor’s office and waited for the worst news to come. Stories of another serving in Africa and my own children at bedtime.

STORY is all around me if I just have ears to listen, the eyes and heart to see. STORY is beautiful and hard. Receiving another’s story reminds me that God is at work whether I care or acknowledge or even notice.

He is binding wounds and bringing joy.

Many years ago, a college professor of mine used to admonish the young (and wordy) writers in her class to “cut it until it bleeds”. And for years now since, I’ve cut and cut and bled all the life out of my words. I am, in fact, one of the best self-editors I know.

I’ve been attempting here on this feeble blog to tell the inner word-critic goodbye for months now. She quiets my story sometimes, leaving me with a blank screen, a long lapse between shared thoughts, between story.

There is struggle and joy and laughter and just-plain-wonder. There is faith, doubt, love and these two blue-eyed girls who educate me in the way of hope and grace and joy every moment of my day. And yet my words remain hidden, wrapped in their silence quilt, with no energy to push outside of the comfortability of unspoken, unwritten territory.

If it’s true, as that great writer above professes, that recounting our story to one another can in some way bring depth and healing to us all, then why do I struggle so against my silence?

Am I not a creation of the STORYTELLER? The one who breathed STORY into human life and who came and lived STORY and who daily purposes the ebb and flow of my own small tale?

I long to be a woman who fearlessly shares my story, one who really sees and hears the story of others.

Today, let’s you and I purpose together to find our words and share them…our small part in binding wounds and bringing joy.